Most official literature would trace the lineage of China’s contemporary era of reforms to the Third Plenum of the 13th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held in December 1978, which marked the final ascendency of Deng Xiaoping and his policy of ‘opening up and reform’ which reversed the Maoist path of communism. Within three decades, China has been transformed from a centrally planned economy to a thriving market economy under the so-called ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’. Private enterprises thrive alongside state-owned enterprises which now account for only some 30% of the nation’s industrial product. The central state was restructured through devolution and decentralization. New administrative systems in personnel, financial and assets management were installed. In a gist, the past thirty years of reforms - though implemented in a gradualist manner described by Deng as “crossing the river by touching the stones”, with tensions between reformist and conservative forces, periodic ups and downs, and setbacks and reversals, have nonetheless managed to break up the previous omnipresent party-state built upon the state’s extraction and monopoly of all resources (manpower, finance, properties and natural resources), operated through a party-controlled centralized cadre system, and state-owned production units and enterprises run by central ‘industrial’ ministries. At the gateway to mainland China stands Hong Kong, a British-ruled enclave until 1 July 1997 when this international city was reunified with the motherland. Unlike the mainland, Hong Kong has always enjoyed a British, and hence Western, style of administration. During colonial rule, Hong Kong had a long tradition of pursuing administrative and management reforms as a substitute for more fundamental constitutional reforms, in order to cope with the government’s legitimacy deficit and to be more responsive to public demands. The 1990s marked the heydays of public sector reform, when

Following the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the new government set out an ambitious programme of educational reform. Following extensive community consultation, reforms to both basic education and senior secondary education were set out and programmed over a ten year period starting in 2001. The school curriculum was the centre piece of this reform agenda with proposals for a more integrated curriculum, more engaging teaching strategies and assessment processes that focused on learning rather than testing. A new approach to senior secondary education extended six years of schooling to all students. The reform agenda was post-colonial in nature but also sought to develop a curriculum that would support Hong Kong's role in the emerging knowledge economy. The reaction of schools to this agenda has not always been supportive. Yet there is some evidence that change is being made and teaching and learning in Hong Kong schools has been affected by the reform agenda.
[Copyright © National Institute for Compilation and Translation].

An important feature of Hong Kong's education reform over the past decade has been the articulation of the 'no loser principle.' It was meant to signal that all students are valuable and will benefit from both basic and senior secondary education. Yet barriers remain for the 2.9% of students under age 15 who can be classified as ethnic minorities. There is a declining participating rate as students move from primary to tertiary level, the medium of instruction remains alien to most of these students, and there are no curriculum provisions to meet their special needs. This paper will examine both the policy context in which provisions for ethnic minority students have been made in Hong Kong schools and also classroom practice that operationalises this policy on a daily basis. The purpose is to make an assessment of the extent to which the 'no loser principle' can be said to apply to ethnic minority students.
[Copyright © The Hong Kong Teachers' Centre].

This paper first reviews the key changes in early childhood education that was proposed by the Hong Kong Government in the year 2000, including promoting the competence of early childhood education professional, formulating a quality assurance system to improve the quality of the education to be provided to children, diversifying means to subsidize parents to send their children to a childcare centre or kindergarten, standardizing the operations between childcare centres and kindergartens, and facilitating children's transition from early childhood education to primary schooling. Covered next are what have so far been done on those proposed changes, along with commenting on issues/problems that have arisen.
[Copyright © The Hong Kong Institute of Education].